The daughter of a California resident and German-Iranian dual citizen who was executed by Tehran on Monday slammed the Biden-Harris administration and German government for their alleged incompetence in saving him.
Gazelle Sharmahd posted a video of herself Monday night — dressed in all black — as she silently mourned her father, Jamshid Sharmahd’s, death while tying her hair back in a similar fashion to female protesters in Iran’s Women, Life, Freedom movement.
Gazelle criticized the silence from President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, whose governments she labeled “incompetent and corrupt.”
“What have they (#US & #German) done for 4 years when their German-American national was kidnapped in Dubai and taken to Iran by force?” Gazelle posted on X.
“As an American-German national was brutally and shamelessly kidnapped, tortured, held hostage for 4 years and (if confirmed) murdered by the biggest terrorist Organisation in the world, apparently for retaliation of Israeli strikes on the regime, this must have immediate and unmistakable grave consequences for them now,” she added.
Iranian officials announced that Jamshid, a dissident who lived in Glendora outside L.A. with his family, was executed Monday morning after the Islamic republic found him guilty of planning a 2008 attack on a mosque that killed 14 people and wounded over 200 others, in a trial slammed by Amnesty International as a sham.
Gazelle and her family have long disputed the claims from Tehran, spending years advocating for Jamshid’s release after he was abducted during a flight layover in Dubai in 2020.
He was notably excluded in the 2023 deal that saw $6 billion — which are currently frozen — handed to Tehran in exchange for five prisoners because as the 20-year US resident was not an American citizen.
The heartbroken daughter has long-claimed that her father, a green card holder, should have been included in the deal over the Levinson Act — named after former FBI agent Robert Levinson who disappeared in Iran, which provides protections to US citizens and US nationals taken hostage abroad.
Gazelle also blamed her father’s death on Abram Paley, America’s Iran-deputy special envoy who met with her last year and whose office is investigating Jamshid’s death.
“YOU left him to die, while the Biden-Harris Administration handed $6 billion to his captors and, if confirmed, his murderers,” Gazelle wrote.
“We do not want any statements or condolences that do not include the immediate return of my father (dead or alive) and a severe punishment for the Islamic Regime murderers,” she added.
Along with the terror charges, Tehran accused Jamshid of plotting several other assaults through the little-known Kingdom Assembly of Iran — an opposition group seeking to restore the monarchy that was overthrown by the Islamic Revolution in 1979 — and its Tondar militant wing.
Iran never provided evidence to its claims against Jamshid, who was denied the right to defend himself in court.
Paley said Jamshid’s execution “represent the latest abhorrent act in the regime’s long history of transnational repression and accelerating rate of executions.”
Scholz called the execution a “scandal,” with German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock threatening “serious consequences” over Jamshid’s death.
“We have campaigned tirelessly for Jamshid Sharmahd and sent a high-ranking team from the foreign office to Tehran on several occasions,” Baberbock said in a statement.
“The killing of Jamshid Sharmahd shows what kind of inhumane regime is in place there: a regime that uses death against its youth, its own population and foreign nationals,” she added.
